One of my favorite things outside of writing, is color. The varying world of color. Of mixing and matching, of contrast and light. My hobbies involve color in big ways. I knit with yarn that’s sometimes bright and vibrant and sometimes subtle and soft in tone. I also love scrapbook papers with patterns of varying colors on them and cotton quilt fabrics that mix and match.
One of the best ways to delve into the character while writing or reading is to experience some if not all of the five senses. Taste, touch, smell, sight and sound. As a reader or writer, do you notice color when you read or write? Color can give the indication of all sorts of moods to the story.
Imagine a house, dark, brown, gray, black (color) with rough planks of wood (Touch).
Now imagine a house, light, white, pink, orange, yellow, smooth with shiny slick sides.
Two very different houses and the color effects the mood you have when reading about it.
Dark=mellow, sorrowful, maybe scary
Bright=energetic, cheerful, happy
When reading your next book take a notice at the colors used to describe everything. What do you notice? How does it affect your mood when reading the scenes?
What is your favorite use of color?
Ansha Kotyk loves the color of the cover of GANGSTERLAND, it’s a muted red with dark shadows of villains in the background, lurking. Which leads into book #2, Apocalypse Junction, where getting sucked into a book has its drawbacks: a missing sister you need to rescue, a lost gold mine to find, AND a way out. Available later this year. Check out www.anshakotyk.com for more.
This is great. I think I have underused color in my writing, but you’re absolutely right that it does much to set the mood. Thanks for this.
Me too, Lia! I noticed Rick Riordan in the Percy Jackson series uses color and that JK Rowling in Harry Potter uses color in lots of different ways from house colors to the colors used in curses. It’s kinda awesome!
Color is interesting too because it can mean different things in different cultures. White, for instance, symbolizes death in China, rather than black, which western cultures associate it with.